This law pertains to the start and end of actual play. In our days, a bell used to ring, to let everyone present, be it the players and even spectators to know that play was about to start / resume.

Before the start of the day's play and after the luncheon interval, the bell used to be rung twice. The first time was 15 minutes before the start / resumption and the second was a 'warning' bell of sorts, rung five minutes before the umpires entered the playing area. The first bell was meant to indicate that any practice sessions or nets taking place on the ground had to be stopped. Only one bell was rung during the tea interval, five minutes prior to resumption.
 

I realized that the practice of ringing a bell was not universally prevalent during my stint in Australia and New Zealand as one of the umpires in the 1992 World Cup. Instead, the umpires were supposed to knock on the players' dressing room doors to indicate that play was to begin / resume. Alternately, the umpires could inform any of the players or an attendant near the dressing-room door. As it transpired, the bell has now become a thing of the past all over the cricketing world.

Traditionally, the practice has been that the umpires enter the playing area first, followed by the fielding side and then the batsmen. The umpires check with the fielding side which end they are starting the bowling from and accordingly inform the batsmen. However, a change of mind may require play to start from the other end. So, the batsman taking strike may also change.

The umpire at the bowler's end gives the 'guard' to the batsman (the striker) after informing him the bowler's mode of delivery (right arm over the wicket , right-arm round, left-arm over the wicket or left-arm round). He then counts the fielders, their positions and checks whether his colleague is ready. He finally signals to the scorers to ascertain that they too are ready. After that, he shouts 'Play!', loudly and distinctly, so that everybody hears him!

The call of 'Time" indicates the cessation of play for that session and the bails are removed from both ends. The bails aren't removed at the time of the mid-session drinks interval. "Time" is also called if a wicket falls/batsman retires within two minutes of a lunch or tea interval or close of play. Although the law says that "Time" will be called if the umpire at the bowler's end reaches his standing position and the time for the scheduled close of play is reached, but in reality both umpires gesture to each other when the close of play is round the corner, to decide whether to stop at the end of the over or continue play for one more over. Another occasion to call 'Time' may be in case of a heavy downpour during the last over or of course at any other time.

MANDATORY OVERS

In a county game between Yorkshire and Warwickshire in 1967, the Yorkshire captain Brian Close was accused of adopting a slow over-rate to deprive Warwickshire, who were chasing a target, of an outright win. Things were slowed down to such an extent that only two overs were bowled in eleven minutes at one stage. Brian Close attributed the loss of time to an injury sustained by one of his players, and also to Fred Trueman's sending down one wide and two no-balls in an over.

But the authorities (then the MCC) did not digest this trash and poor Close lost the captaincy of the England team that was to tour the Caribbean. The MCC at first thought of implementing a rule wherein ten mandatory overs had to be bowled in the last 30 minutes. Finally, it was decided that 20 overs had to be bowled in the last one hour, assuming of course that a result was not achieved prior to or during that period! From 1968 onwards, this became an experimental law all over the cricketing world.

This law exists even today, but the ICC has reduced the number of mandatory overs to l5. This was necessitated as all calculations for the over-rate are based on the four-minutes-per-over principle. Hence, on the last day, the 15 mandatory overs begin to complete the day's quota of 90 overs after 75 overs have been bowled.

A revision of the number of overs needed to be bowled if there is a change of innings / interruption in the last one hour, is based on a deduction of one over for every full four minutes. Thus, if seven minutes' play is lost, only one over will be deducted. The change-of-innings (ten minutes) interval will reduce the number of overs by only two.

In order to have as many overs as possible in the final hour if an innings ends during that period, two calculations are taken into consideration. The first calculation pertains to the number of 'mandatory' overs bowled till that point plus two overs that are taken up by the innings-changeover. Imagine an instance when ten overs have been bowled at the time of the changeover. Two more overs will be added to the figure of ten, which will leave the bowing side with three overs to bowl and thus complete the mandatory count. The second calculation looks at the time left. If ten overs (plus two) have already been bowled, but there are say, 17 minutes left, the bowling side will have to deliver five overs. This figure will be worked out keeping mind the four-minutes-per-over rule. Any additional minute will count for an additional full over. The calculation that generates the greater number of overs will be implemented. Thus, in the above instance, the second calculation, according to which five overs will be bowled, will be preferred to the first, according to which only three have to be bowled.

Malpractices by either side can easily be prevented through these methods. It is the norm even in one-day matches nowadays for 15 overs to be bowled in an hour, unless the umpires and Match Referee both feel that the players in the middle cannot 

- By Piloo Reporter